


you're a loss to start

by kuro49



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Countdown to Final Crisis (Comics), DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-01 20:23:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20889005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Jason is on Earth-51 when he decides to stay for good. Good is the relative term here.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fleet_of_red](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleet_of_red/gifts).

> if it wasn't for fleet, i wouldn't have even done one bang, let alone two so like my biggest fucking thank you to fleet for getting me off my ass and probably capping my year off as one of my most productive ones ([check out fleet's art for the fic!!! 💖](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20904347/chapters/49892615/)). another huge thanks to Rivkae from discord for the beta <33
> 
> i don't read much comics and this probably shows, any left over comic continuity discrepancies and utter disregard for DC-timelines, i'd just like to say fuck DC, that’s why.
> 
> for those who might mind: mildly dubious consent is tagged since (enthusiastic) consent is given without knowledge of some very crucial details which only comes to light at the very end.

Death does not discriminate, so why should he?

(Jason is Jason is Jason is _ alive_.)

The earth is Earth-51.

And the year is whenever the fuck he has jumped to land into.

Jason Todd is hanging from a neon sign, bracing for the impact of Gorgon's impending blow, knowing the nasty distance he will fall from the side of the building when it lands. Instead of a bursting bloom of pain and a hollow dropping sensation of a fall, there is the grunt of a blocked hit, and the low rumbling voice of someone Jason _ knows_.

“Don’t worry, kid. Just take my hand and—”

A sharp intake of breath.

And it isn't coming from Jason himself.

There is a hand held out to him, and when Jason looks up, he wishes he could be surprised. It is nowhere close to actuality but it feels as though he is waist deep in mud and wading through. Small minor inconveniences give way to bring him back to the start. Through the multiverse and five separate earths later, of course, it would still be Bruce Wayne doing the saving around here.

“—J-jason...?”

Some things do not change no matter how far he runs, Jason figures. It is part resignation and partially set in stone. Some things are almost as predictable as his own demise if Jason lets himself think about it at all.

In the peripherals of his eyes, he can see Batman dispatching Gorgon with a few precise moves, each one brutal, each one nearing lethal.

“Fancy seeing you here, B.” Jason grins, bravado barely held together by the skin of his teeth. Bruce recognizes him in just the domino mask, and he seems surprised.

The loud crash as Gorgon hits the asphalt of the street below them is deafening, but it is the sound of this city laid to waste by Monarch’s army that gets Jason taking Bruce’s hand, and holding on.

Jason wants to say that Batman brings him home. But it isn't that simple, not when the Batcave looks nothing like any one of the caves he has seen when he tore through multiple universes just to end up right here with Bruce again. He doesn't get a chance to look around, not much anyway, not when he is tied down too tightly to a metal chair that is bolted to the floor.

"Start talking." Batman tests the give of the ropes. There is none.

"Or, what?"

Batman doesn't take off the cowl, leaving it in perfect place, and Jason is glad for that. The stare of the Bat alone is bad enough, he hardly needs to start looking at Bruce Wayne in the eyes. Jason lets him brood for a moment longer. Lets that _or, what _ hang in the precarious balance between two people that ought to know one another.

But they don't. Not really. Not this version, and maybe not their own versions either.

It is not a test to be passed. But again, it isn't like this is Jason’s first time convincing Bruce of his return either, and he reckons it won’t be the last. He's bled once for him, he will bleed again for him. Jason still hisses for good measures as Bruce draws the needle out none too gently when he takes a blood sample from him. The distrust is near palpable, and Jason is neither counting the missing domino mask from his face nor the tight winding of rope keeping him to his seat.

"You've got ten seconds." Batman says. "Or, _this_."

The Cave around him is different, feels new in its entirety when its security measures outmatch the paranoia Jason knows Bruce to be capable of. But then again so is the gun Bruce points at him.

It gets Jason laughing.

A full bellied thing that makes his abdominal muscles ache with the strain, the dig of the ropes, the force of the laugh. Because of fucking _ course_, it would all amount to Bruce leveling a gun to his chest. And Bruce doesn't shoot him in the head only because he is still trying to decipher the shift of Jason's facial muscles, trying to find a tell where there is none.

Jason uses up the full ten seconds given to laugh. Sobering up only when time is up before he finally talks.

He doesn't look at Bruce when he begins, one word stumbling over the next to get out, staring blankly just over Bruce's shoulder as he explains why his blood matches the DNA of a kid that died years ago, giving up the same story with a very different ending his time around.

Halfway through, Batman drags off the cowl.

There is no nostalgia that hits Jason in reaction to the twist of pain on Bruce's bare face. Jason wonders if this is the same reaction the Bruce of his earth had. Jason's eyes drop to the gun Bruce still has in his hand, the very same one lifted from his own holster when the man brought him to a version of the Batcave that he still does not recognize an inch of. He keeps going with a viciousness he didn’t think he was capable of but well, even if everything else feels a bit like déjà vu, Bruce’s expression doesn’t bring forth a shred of recognition.

Jason leans deeply into the cut of the ropes, hoping this might leave scars that stay. It won't, but he can hope.

Jason gets his gun back.

He also gets let up from his seat. The ropes slice clean through with a batarang, the pieces dropping down around him in a loose circle.

"Let me show you my world, Jay." Bruce says, finally.

If Jason still knows how to be honest with himself, he doesn't actually want to know. Standing up from the chair and brushing non-existent dirt from his clothes, Jason says instead. "Hit me with your best shot, old man."

Bruce does. He doesn’t pull his punches, doesn't go easy on him. And it leaves Jason feeling like all the air in his lungs have left in one gut wrenching rush because when Bruce walks, Jason follows, and they come to a standstill in front of a glass case.

And it is almost like there is the Gotham wind through his hair.

It is not about hurting one another even if it looks the part. Bruce doesn't hold his hand even though the opportunity here definitely feels like it warrants that too. Because when in theory, the Batman here is everything Jason wishes his could be when he stands in front of the mementos of the man’s Rogue Gallery. Joker. Luthor. Sinestro. Grundy. Grodd. Jason stands but the awe he expects does not come.

Like a righteous declaration, this Bruce tells him. “I did it for you.”

Quinn. Black Mask. Deathstroke. Hush. Bane. Short of their severed heads delivered on spikes, it is clear the kind of end they’ve met at the hands of this Batman. So it seems supervillains are a bit of an extinct species on this earth.

“I,” Jason stumbles on it because kill after kill after _ kill _ in trophies laid out just for him, a red carpet soaked in blood. He might be addressing the Bat of this earth but the Bruce here only sees the Jason of his own universe. “I never asked for any of this.”

Maybe just one head on a wooden stake might be nice but all the others, well, this Bruce certainly isn't short on conviction.

Bruce smiles, tight and brittle in the reflection of the glass. The cowl is gone, and it feels _ wrong_. “You didn't have to, Jaylad.”

The urge to shatter every last pane of glass has him shaking, hands at his side and closing down into fists. Jason hasn't heard that nickname in a long, long time.

"It's funny, y'know." Jason starts, a wiry twist of his mouth like he has no idea if he is attempting a smile or has given up completely. "I would've given anything to have this. I really thought I would have a better reaction to this than, well, _this_."

Here is the truth, and the truth falls flat.

When Jason lets out a laugh, it comes out deflated.

"If it helps, I did it for myself too." Bruce tells him, the tightness fading out with this admittance. The brittleness turning hard with an attempt for kindness when he tries to soften the blow.

"More me or more you?" Jason presses, touches a hand to the glass and almost sees himself reflected in Catwoman's mask. If she is anything like the Selina that he knows, then he really doesn't know this Bruce at all.

"Can't be both?"

"Nothing's ever that fair." Jason's mouth is still turned up but there is hardly anything left in him. "So let's stop lying to ourselves."

Truths be damned. Because the two of them definitely are.

"More you."

An exhale, a loud breathy release. "Then I'm responsible for dooming all of these lives."

Bruce bodily turns to face Jason and it makes him freeze when the conviction is steel, not allowing for any arguments. "I should've done it long before he ever laid a hand on you."

It's a sweet thing to say. Jason's answering laugh is not.

Here is Jason's current situation.

He is part of the Challengers, touring through the multiverse. Been on Earth-50, Earth-30, Earth-15, Earth-8, Earth-12. Tore through each and every one of those worlds to finally find himself here: On Earth-51.

The grass is not any greener where Monarch's transdimensional army is scorching the earth into ash. But he feels that familiar pull. The same pull that kept him in place in Crime Alley on another earth in another time when he looks up with a tire iron in his hands and Batman's shadow falls draping over him.

“Stay with me, Jason. Wait it out.”

It isn't soft, the way Bruce says it. Still, it sounds like a plead coming from a man like him.

Jason thinks he knows what he can say to that. Choice word after choice word, defending a world that cannot defend itself, repeating the arguments he has disputed against long before he ever stumbled on to this particular earth looking for the original Ray Palmer.

Instead, he rubs at the rope burn at his wrists before biting out: “Fuck right off, old man.”

He hates how Bruce’s mouth twists, upwards on each end, smiles like Jason’s said the one thing he’s been waiting for all his life that remains.

“Nowhere to go. Look around, death’s all around us. Whatever your team has planned, it is doomed from the start. There is no reason for you to die a mindless death a second time.”

It is probably true but Jason doesn't just have to admit to it.

“So, what did you have in mind?” Jason could have choked on the acerbity of his next words but he doesn’t let it stop him. “A double suicide with the gun that killed your parents?”

It feels hypocritical even if it feels right, the words mean, the implication cruel. Jason's mean streak runs long and wide. Except Bruce's own isn't that far off because the Bruce Wayne here is still Batman at his core.

When this Bruce laughs, this Bruce laughs like that is the funniest running joke between them yet.

Jason doesn't run, not because he can't but because Bruce has always had a way of making him stay. Feet planted to the ground, his hands curled into fists at his side. Jason wishes it was as easy as thinking he could be forced into any of this. But it never is, he has to make a decision.

“Stay with me, Jason. Wait it out.” Bruce says again after a pause.

The two of them do not make a difference in a war of this scale. Maybe that is a hard truth to swallow but neither one of them are self centred enough to believe they would be the ones to tip the scale. Win or lose, that has always been set from the start. Jason is just surprised there is still an option here where one side comes away with a win. That side being theirs. There is a chance for this to not be a total loss. There is a what-if here that does not exist on his own earth.

Fact of the matter is, Bruce offers.

And if Jason is anything like the Jason of this world, it was never a matter of if but when.

Jason dips his head once, nods in finality because he cannot trust his own voice. _ I'll stay _ remains lodged in his throat, growing tighter.

Bruce smiles in that way that is barely a tug at the corner of his mouth. "Let me show you the rest of the Batbunker then."

Under the shower where the hot water leaves his skin bright pink and the condensation gathers over the mirror, Jason stands still as the bathroom door opens.

Bruce comes in, bringing him a fresh set of clothes so he isn’t getting back inside his own that has been through universes of sweat, dirt, and filth. The shower curtain is clear, dripping in water, but it still allows Bruce to see through it while all of him is on display. It’s funny if Jason thinks about all the times he was made and then remade into something he is not. All of it shows on a body he's dragged through literal hell and back. Every single scar an intrinsic part of himself that he barely even sees any of them in the reflection.

The bathroom is not big, but it isn’t so small that it should feel suffocating. Except that is exactly what Bruce looks like, windpipe held close by a vice grip invisible to the eye.

Bruce moves before either one of them really truly knows how to react.

Because when Jason blinks, water dripping from his lashes, Bruce is standing right in front of him. White tiles at Jason's back, Bruce comes close enough to have the spray of the shower head catch him too. It leaves the thin white button down clinging to his chest, going translucent as water keeps coming down relentlessly.

Jason isn’t quite so sure he knows how to look away when Bruce is staring at him like _ that_.

“That.” Bruce starts, and doesn’t continue. He looks pained, and isn't that ironic when Jason is the one to have lived through every single visceral scar.

“Which one do you mean?” Jason asks, and there is an inkling that he should probably be concerned about modesty. But it doesn’t cross his mind. He might be completely naked, but he isn’t the one who looks like he is being flayed wide open. That’s all Bruce.

It's a nice change, Jason thinks cruelly.

His hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it away with one hand while the other shuts off the water to leave them at a standstill. Because, of course, it would be this scar that has Bruce transfixed. Of all his scars, it is this one that has Bruce bringing his hand to Jason’s jaw, tilting his head up to bare his throat, showing off that particular scar where Bruce’s own batarang had cut, stark and clean across the side of his neck.

“You really want to know?” Jason doesn’t flinch, he holds steady while the cold air from outside of the bathroom comes seeping in.

Bruce nods, and it is the heat of Bruce’s fingertips still keeping his jaw in place that gets his hair to stand on ends and goosebumps to break out all over his skin. A shiver goes grappling down the line of his spine when Bruce shifts his hand to brush the pad of his thumb across the raised scar. And then Jason is spilling the story like Bruce spilled his blood, hot and wet and leaking between his fingers, not cutting back on a single brutal detail while the Joker’s laugh cackles louder and louder in the distance between them.

He never quite looks Bruce in the eye until the very end, when he tells him how he dug himself out of the rubble once more, breathing in the dust and debris while he was forced to work past the dizzying loss of blood.

The horrifying truth sits uncomfortably.

He watches as Bruce turns it over in his head. His fingers coming away wet with water even when it feels thicker, stickier, and pungent with the phantom scent of copper and rust. Bruce doesn’t apologize for the actions of Jason’s Bruce, and he shouldn’t have to.

Jason pulls away from Bruce’s hold and steps around him.

Jason puts all of his focus on swiping a towel from the rack on the wall to wipe himself down. Every motion efficient but not rushed, allowing the core of what he's divulged to sink into Bruce like a Kris plunged down to the hilt.

It is an invasion of privacy.

That much Bruce registers in his head. It is a soft intruding thing that pushes at him after the fact, but Bruce didn't want to wait to ask. Couldn't wait. He's waited for far too long on the dead that are never coming back to life.

This is not his Jason, and he is not the version of Bruce Wayne of this Jason’s world. But it matters, that burning sensation of anger then horror and that slow crawling itch of never wanting to let this Jason out of his sight again if it means he can have a direct hand in protecting him.

It's a painful scar to look at, but Bruce finds his eyes trailing over it again and again even as Jason walks around him. Bruce watches Jason drag the towel over his head, gathering the droplets of water still dripping from the ends of his hair, rubbing against the back of his neck. Bruce's head is filled with thoughts that could almost be his own when he knows the way batarangs get thrown, the precision it takes, and the way the razor sharp edge sliding across skin then flesh to draw a rush of blood feels.

It is not his batarang. It is not his precise throw. It isn't even his skin cut straight through.

But it feels like it could be.

Jason finally turns around again, towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist. The motion draws Bruce's eyes to the thin tendrils of striations across his body, the most prominent ones at the abdomen but also all the ones up and down his thighs.

“And all of these?” Bruce asks because he cannot let any of it rest in what might resemble peace. Not in the short run or the long, not when things never stay buried for long.

“Lazarus pit." Jason shares, tracing the fainter ones at his upper arm. He remembers how the stretch marks first looked, all red and purple like carvings of fresh made bruises, tender to the touch at the hard press of his own fingertips. “I was barely ninety pounds soaking wet, didn’t even make it past the five feet mark when I died. Getting thrown into the pit had me coming out as something my body wasn’t quite equipped to handle even if it did get rid of most of the scarring from before. Playing catch up isn’t pretty.”

Jason rubs absentmindedly at the stretch marks at his hips, just above the knot of the towel he's finally tied around his waist. Bruce looks like he wants to put a hand on all of these scars too. If asked, Jason isn’t so sure he would know how to say _ no_. Because Bruce is vindicated here. Every act of premeditated murder to take out rogue after rogue that followed the first one is the right thing to do.

But it doesn’t feel like he’s won anything at all when Bruce finds out that Jason was always doomed to start with.

Jason settles for pulling the shirt over his head and tugging it on to hide most of the scars, his voice muffled by the rustling of the tee. “It’s getting cold in here, Bruce.”

Jason waits to hear that tell-tale click of the bathroom door shutting behind Bruce before he unties the towel and drops it to the ground in exchange for a pair of sweatpants that Bruce brought in for him.

There is a dead man walking, shuffling in his gait, and it isn’t Jason for once.

He is in the main room of the bunker when Bruce shows him the Red Robin costume.

"This was for you." Bruce starts.

"For me?" Jason scoffs, lifting his eyes from the bit of tech he was tinkering with to see the black and red and yellow laid out by Bruce. "You mean to tell me you don't have a line of warm bodies to fill my Robin suit? You're Batman, you're always ready, even if it's to replace the replacement."

Jason says all of that without malice, and he is pretty sure these are several steps upwards in self improvement or even personal growth when he is able to get every single word out without the all encompassing rage of the pit taking a crippling hold of him.

“Your replacement.” Bruce repeats, surprise colouring those two words alone, and it feels like this is another one of those things that strikes him to the core.

He isn't shaken but Jason can imagine this is as close to that state as the Dark Knight can get. Jason has no intention of making any of this any lighter of a blow than that initial one made on him when he was still under Talia's care. She broke the news of Bruce's brand new shiny Robin to him, and it was not unkindly, far from that really when Talia laid the photo face down in front of Jason. Told him, _ only if you want to_, like there was any other option for him.

When he turned the photograph over in his hands, it fucking trembled.

Green bled into his vision, the Lazarus effect creeping through his veins at the sight of a boy that wasn't himself at Batman's side. An altered Robin suit that was muted and hollowed out of any touch of it’s last successor.

Jason touches a hand to the suit, feeling how much more protection the Kevlar weaved into this Red Robin suit has when in contrast to the Robin uniform he had worn before his death. A death that occurs in both worlds like there are some kind of constants to the multiverse and Jason Todd must die.

Jason keeps going, “Uh-huh. Made me a permanent fixture in your cave and turned me into your very own cautionary tale for all the little birdies to come afterwards.”

“You,” Bruce breathes out, and it’s shaky. Feels a lot like the foundation of what they are trying to create here. “You’re not replaceable.”

“It certainly didn’t feel that way.” If he is to fall apart, he might as well do it all here. Jason puts the suit down, pushes it across the table back at Bruce. “I doubt he even knows I’m gone now.”

“If he's anything like I am, he would.”

“Maybe it’s better that you two aren’t anything alike.”

But the doubt runs wide and deep, like a chasm carving into the thick air of the room.

They are sitting opposite of one another, armchairs in a room that is not all memorabilia or kill trophies or bat-tech.

The rest of the bunker is utilitarian, this is decidedly not.

“What's this supposed to be?” Jason slumps in his seat because if he closes his eyes, it reminds him of Bruce’s study at the manor. And if he turns his face, it feels like he could feel the warmth of a small fire in the fireplace that should be to his left. He asks in mocking at the setup and the way it has him lowering his guard. “Some kind of bat-sanctioned therapy?”

“I'm not qualified.” Bruce’s answer is even, settled, like he loves this room above all others in this bunker he names like everything else he does.

Jason grumbles. “Never stopped you before.”

“If it helps," he pauses, steadying his gaze and holds Jason's. "You can pretend I'm your Bruce.”

It doesn't.

It really, _really_ doesn't help one bit.

Not when Jason can still recall the warmth of this Bruce pressing close enough to turn his head to examine the scar across his neck. Beneath the fall of water from the shower, Jason completely naked while Bruce's shirt leaves nothing to the imagination. He wasn’t held in place to stay still. He stayed, holding still to see the flash of fury in Bruce’s eyes on his behalf for that particular act of violence.

It is all of that. It is also the way the word _ your _ wraps around Bruce's tongue. It's not mean, not the way he says it, but there is meaning behind that choice.

Because your Bruce is not just your world's Bruce if they had to have it spelt out between them. This is the line they are not supposed to cross. Misplaced feelings through time and space. There is no room for any of that but here is Bruce saying the things he can't be caught saying.

“Bruce isn't min—” Jason starts, pressing his mouth into a thin flat line at the double meaning Bruce lays out so cleanly in his words. “We were never—” Starts again. “And then I died.”

Stops on a full stop.

“He loved you though.”

No intonation, no stress placed on any of the words that matter, but the meaning still shines through with an ugly mottled colour. Bruce says those words like he knows a thing or two, and Jason thinks he could hate him for it if it was true.

“I was a kid,” Jason thinks it bears repeating, “I was _ his _ kid.”

Bruce nods once, looking every bit like a father that buried his son. That thing or two tucked right back into his deepest pocket, and maybe that is for good reasons.

Jason has to wonder what Bruce thought of his counterpart, the Jason that didn't come back to life, the one that held centerfold in this Bruce's heart. There are no glass case with Jason's Robin suit only because Bruce has created one in his head. There are no plaques made in his name as _ A Good Soldier_, but he is almost certain Bruce has plenty of room in his head to create something far worse.

Jason feels inclined to ask whether— he stops himself because here is that thought and all its ugly implications.

“I was fifteen.”

“And then you died.” Bruce echoes back at him but it feels different, the words warped on that singular thought running through both of their heads but never said out loud.

“Now you're getting it.” Jason answers.

What they had had died with Jason before it could become anything at all. Maybe it is better off that way. Maybe there is regret. And maybe there is something far more sinister than what is simply implied.

But they never were. And now, they never will.

Not with Jason here with the Batman that did all the right things and still didn’t get the chance to have his dead Robin resurrected in the months that followed his crusade.

They draw to a long lull of silence, and Jason can almost be fooled into closing his eyes and turning his head to the left. Thinking of a good cup of earl grey that Alfred enjoys, thinking on the smooth page of a novel well-read. But he also sees the door, and the white of the sterile clean cut of the rest of the bunker and remembers that they exist in an isolation that continues to skew perception.

“Feel better?” Bruce asks him, his voice dropping low and quiet. Careful and fragile, like Jason was that easy to break apart to start.

“Not by a long shot, doc.”

“Can't say I didn’t try.”

Jason smiles, and it doesn't twist awry.

If he says it gets easier from there on out, he would be lying. But the way his laughter falls does come a bit simpler, less weighted with implications.

“Jay.” Bruce starts, the drop of that nickname lighting up something pleasant in the baser instincts of Jason's head. “What was it like when you came back?”

Jason glances towards Bruce, looking up from where he is guts deep into modifying the Red Robin suit into something he is more used to and settles for the truth. “You wouldn’t have liked me.”

“I'm not so sure about that, I like you just fine now.” Bruce takes a seat across the work bench from him, within arm's reach.

“I didn't like myself.”

It's an even statement in its simplicity. Upon reflection, he's known this fact for a long while now.

“Was it the blood on your hands?”

There is a wrong answer to that question even if it is the truth.

“Maybe the first time but every single time after that? I just thought I was doing what needed to be done.” He was never trigger happy to start. It was never about the rush of adrenaline either. “I was happy being the one to do all of Batman's dirty work. Ridding the filth from his streets for good. Cleaning up the messes he wouldn't even glance at, fixing his city for him with his bat on my chest like there was any chance he could forget who I was.”

He doesn’t place a stressor on any use of _ his, _ he rushes past them like they don’t mean a thing, but the repetition here is never going to go unnoticed by someone like Bruce Wayne.

“Would you’ve called it devotion?”

It’s a sweet and kind descriptor that Jason knows his actions were not.

“It was more like obsession. I can admit to that now.” Jason says in all honesty. It's not a self deprecating laugh as much as it is the acceptance of how things were always going to be for him, that fixation all wrapped up in one man. “It was always about you, Bruce."

Jason puts down the suit completely, levels Bruce with a stare, looking for what, he is sure he will know when he finally sees it. Bruce leans forward while Jason reaches out, both hands finding purchase in the fabric of Bruce's turtleneck to pull him in.

When Jason kisses Bruce, none of it is gentle.

There is no finesse either. It is a trial in errors, Jason grazing the kiss with the edge of teeth, pressing down harder and spurring Bruce on. Jason wants to be proven right, that Bruce would match him one cruel word for another, one harsh blow for something even harder that would put him on the ground. This Bruce doesn’t give him that, isn’t willing to give into this demand. The man opens up in response, but he does it slowly, softly, easing Jason down from the edge, and holding back the entire time as he does.

Jason thought he would be mad about that. Except he is not. He pulls back with his mouth stinging to ask. “Is this what Stockholm Syndrome feels like?”

Bruce chuckles, amused. “I wouldn't know.”

“Why, B?" Jason glances away just to pin the same stare back at Bruce. He wants to know, that thing that has been out of reach for him for what feels like his entire wretched life even though he knows that can't be true. He's lived before he ever met Bruce Wayne. "Are you going to tell me you've loved me from the start?”

“I didn’t think I ever needed to say it.” Bruce answers, reaching out with a hand and rubbing a calloused thumb against the edge of Jason's bottom lip, wiping at the spit shine there and the soft give of his mouth beneath the gentle touch. He is saying it now.

“And why is that, Bruce?” Jason presses for him to say the words.

“I thought you always knew.”

The thing is this: He does. Jason's known this for a while now. He just didn't allow himself to believe it until right this moment.


	2. Part II

Life is not about to be fair, so why should he?

(Bruce is Bruce is the absolute _ same_.)

Things change, as they should.

You do not kiss your adoptive father on the mouth and come away from that without the fundamental bits of your relationship altered indefinitely. Even if he is only an alternative version of your own from a universe away.

It’s a dangerous thought if Jason truly thinks about it at all with the depth that it probably deserves because Jason wants to say he made the right choice even when that nagging note of what-if refuses to go away. He took the offer, he stayed. He turned on the Challengers to wait out the first strike of the Monarch attacks, following through with Bruce’s plan instead of the one that puts Ray Palmer’s life over his own. It has him thinking up scenarios after scenarios of his own world, and also of this one outside of a bunker made capable of withstanding against every known force.

The realization trickles in.

And Jason almost wishes it could be a startling thing, the kind to knock all the air out of his lungs. History has a habit of repeating itself, and it seems like he was never meant to learn from his own mistakes. Jason has been rendered back to thinking of Bruce like he’s the only thing that holds any sort of significance again.

“What’re you thinking about, Jay?”

Jason thinks it’s probably kind of fucked up when he is soaking up the affection Bruce doles out like he is still that touch-starved kid when he is already leaning into Bruce’s hand in his hair. They are sitting side by side, not quite curled into one another but not entirely not either while Bruce drags his fingertips across Jason’s scalp.

“I’m thinking,” Jason starts, wondering what is the best way to approach this without making it painfully obvious. “I’m thinking I want you to fuck me until I can’t think anymore.”

They’ve kissed plenty of times up until now, always at Jason’s initiation, always with Jason pushing Bruce back against the wall and tearing into him like he’s a little bit desperate for it. He is, and he shows it, groaning long and low with his eyes squeezed shut, his hands grappling against the hem of Bruce’s shirt and stretching the fabric out with his grip until Bruce has to ease him off.

Bruce always kisses him back, slow and sweet and chaste like Jason’s somehow a wide-eyed innocent in all of this.

“It’s late.” Bruce says to him instead.

Here is the problem, probably one of many.

“It’s really not, B.” Jason tells him, steeling himself as he backs away, not to back off but to force the man to face him as an equal and not a substitute for a son that never lived passed his sixteenth birthday.

Jason doesn’t realize it earlier only because he doesn’t want to. But Jason has tried it his way, going through days just doing that, following through with Bruce's instructions without even a second thought with the habits ingrained into him.

_That’s enough for today_, he would tell him, and Jason obliges, letting Bruce lead him out of the workroom with a hand at the small of his back. _ Finish your food_, he would say to him from across the kitchen counter and Jason would scrape up the last few bites into his mouth. _ Good night_, Bruce would say, knuckles knocking at the frame of Jason’s bedroom door before he comes in to press a kiss to the crown of his head, taking his novel from his hands and slipping the bookmark in before putting it on the nightstand. It isn’t mean, but that only makes it worse when Jason lays in the dark while Bruce is shutting the door behind him as he leaves.

A Robin in line with his Batman and every order he lays down like absolute law.

Bruce sets up limits for him and Jason walks along that carefully drawn line.

“I don’t know what you want out of me staying.”

It’s the first sign he shows that he is anything but content in a situation that leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe it is the same walls he has been facing in a vacuum where just the two of them exists, waiting for an end he isn't quite so sure will happen, maybe it is the addition of all the little ways Bruce treats him like he is the little boy he lost.

“Maybe atonement?” Bruce offers in the face of Jason’s frustration.

Jason looks at the far end of the bunker where the trophies stand in glass cases like some kind of imitation of his own uniform. And then it is back to Bruce, gaze drawn to the man again, the way it always does.

“If that isn't atonement, I really don't know what that could possibly be.”

Jason doesn’t climb into Bruce’s lap like he wants to, doesn’t make the man wrap an arm around his waist, one hand at his hip and the other at the back of his neck drawing him in with a grip that is nice and tight and hard enough to leave bruises in the shape of his fingers across his skin. There is plenty that Jason wants to ask for, and plenty that he knows he never will. He stands his ground through an argument where neither one of them raises their voice and Jason has to wonder why he bothers at all when Bruce doesn’t even have any intention of entertaining him.

And it shows like the discolourations of some of the worst bruising Jason’s ever received when Bruce answers with this question instead.

“Have you considered that I don’t want anything from you, Jason?”

That gets Jason scoffing, standing up from his place next to Bruce and taking a very literal stance to say with his mouth twisted in contempt.

“Treat me like a kid all you want but don’t take me for someone stupid enough to believe that. I was a lot things but I was never _ this _stupid even before I died.”

The next morning is full of unsaid words. Bruce with his mouth pressed into a thin line, trying to catch Jason’s eyes at every turn. Jason being resolute with not giving him what he wants. It is a push in perhaps the right direction, a fumble in the dark, confusion all worked up into a single need to maybe work through it.

It is late afternoon when Bruce comes up to him.

“You want to fight?” He asks, dressed down in sweats while he holds two fresh towels in his hands.

“I thought we’re already fighting.” Jason answers mildly, glancing down at the change of clothes Bruce places down on the work bench next to him.

“I want to apologize.” Bruce tells him, pointedly.

“With a _ fight_.” Jason repeats, wondering if Bruce understands the act of forgiveness in its most simplest terms.

“If it would make you happy.”

It's an odd word for him to choose at all: Happy. Jason isn't sure either one of them understands what that emotion is supposed to encompass. It's a foreign concept at best, free floating just out of reach. It makes him want to give this a chance, an opportunity in achieving what he always accepted as something not his to have.

“It probably wouldn’t make it worse, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Jason says instead, swiping the change of clothes into his hands and standing up from his spot.

He follows Bruce's lead.

The rules are simple. Easily gone unsaid as they stand apart on the mats. No bo-staff, no weapons, just the curl of their hands into fists.

Jason doesn't hold back. He throws himself into the spar, bearing down on a mean right hook and a mad dash to bring his leg into a sweeping kick.

He fights Bruce like he would with the most brutal of street thugs. Nasty at every turn only to twist out of Bruce's grasp with a snarl before planting an elbow straight into Bruce's gut. He drops low against the mats to avoid a counter, lets the man's swing cut through the air where he had just been. He tries a second sweep of his leg, trying to knock Bruce down to the ground but his foot just meets air as the man jumps back, just out of reach.

It isn't easy, it isn't supposed to.

Jason revels in the rush, his heart hammering inside his chest, his blood rushing adrenaline, his pulse spiking with the sheer thrill of a fight. It doesn't take very long to get the sweat dripping down the lines of their spines to soak at their thin shirts. His skin is dewy with it and beneath the lights over the training mats, Jason looks alive, and finally feels the part too.

Eyes lit up in an emerald green, all the blue fading away for the way they glint with danger.

"I don't want to hurt you." Bruce pants out, a short distance away and maintaining that as they circle the mats.

Bruce is trying his hardest to hold back, but Jason fights dirty, lets out a wince just loud enough to be heard over the impact to get Bruce letting go. He is forcing Bruce's hand to be just as brutal unless Bruce is inclined to walk away at all. It's a test and Bruce recognizes that way too late when Jason slams the full brunt of a shoulder into Bruce's chest, bringing them both crashing down onto the mats.

It's a struggle, a terribly messy one that ends with the palm of Bruce's hand colliding with the bridge of Jason's nose.

It's a struggle that ends with a clean break.

Jason tells Bruce when he is on top of him and they are just a breath's distance apart. His mouth curling in satisfaction, his face streaking in red as he reaches up with the back of his hand to wipe at the blood dripping from his broken nose. "Too little too late, B." 

Is it really masochism when it hurts Bruce more than it could ever hurt himself, Jason wonders.

Jason believes in retribution. Jason believes in an end that comes full circle.

This is why he takes Bruce’s hand to start. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. This is also why he accepts the offer to stay, Bruce never even had to be convincing about it. He talks to Bruce because that’s what adults do. He is not the child Bruce wants him to be, and this will not be his glass case.

"I'm not him." Jason tells him, with some finality.

"I know."

"You could've fooled me."

Bruce is not broken beyond repair but he is split down the center with pain on his good days and it shows. "I know you're not Jay. I know my son is dead. And he's not coming back."

"Because it's like you still see him every time you look at me." Jason is not under any illusion that there is a good easy fix for this but maybe they can try, maybe he doesn't have to be another replacement.

"I don't mean it."

Bruce is looking at him, really seeing him, and that has to be an improvement, Jason thinks. But he still has to ask because there is this terrified part of him that has to wonder whether this Bruce wants him here at all. "Are you so sure about that?"

“It's like," Bruce inhales deeply, pass the lump in his throat, "I died years ago with him.” He swallows hard, and Jason's eyes follow the motion. "I'm trying, Jason."

"...I know." And if Jason is slow with his admittance, well, at least he is following Bruce's lead again. "I am too."

It is a win, it has to be.

How else does Jason explain the full-body shiver that wracks his frame when Bruce initiates the first touch, places a palm to his cheek to draw him in for a kiss.

He kisses him slow, he kisses him thoroughly.

He kisses him so sweetly. Jason almost wants to bite down against the tongue touching at his parted lips to draw blood between them because at least he has an idea of what to do with that. It brings a flush to Jason's skin, one that breaks out across his cheekbones to his throat to go lower still when Bruce touches his fingers to the collar of Jason's tee.

"You want this." Jason murmurs, because he needs that reassurance.

For all his bravado and every harsh word that cuts right down to the bone, Jason has always been an unfathomable pit of insecurities. And being so close to Bruce only seems to keep that pit filling up all the faster.

"Probably for far longer than it's right." Bruce answers, licking into Jason's opened mouth. Jason can't see but he can feel the wry smile across Bruce's lipswhen he keeps kissing him in between every word, lingering on that last one, how it is draped heavily in grief.

Jason leans back to answer, letting the soft drag of the edge of Bruce's teeth to pull at his bottom lip before he finally releases him, the motion lingering with something a lot like longing even if he is right here with him. "It hurts you, doesn't it?"

He sees him as his Bruce and Bruce sees him as his Jason. It is only fair that the two of them end up finding a replacement in one another as the ones left behind in time and space.

"It hurts me more that I couldn't be what you needed." Bruce replies, sincere, and Jason thinks this might be the reason why he stayed.

It is the potential of it all, to have a version of a relationship with Bruce that doesn't gut him inside out, that doesn't dredge up the tendrils of pit madness that will never fade from inside of his head. No, he thinks. This could be a good thing.

"I need you now." Jason admits, breathing out on a slow settling breath.

And so does Bruce.

"I'm here." Bruce answers, drawing him right back, mouth finding his, kissing him softer still. A graze of his lips over his, tender like Jason is something precious, to be cherished, and it is jarring when Jason has never once considered himself to be any one of these things.

Jason lets go of Bruce in order to tug his tee off, tips his hips into Bruce's hands as the man works the waistband of his sweatpants over the jutting bone of his pelvis then down over his thighs.

Like that first night he stayed, out of all his clothes, standing in the steam of the shower with water still dripping over him, he sees him as he is, stripped down to just skin and scars. Jason stands before him the very same way now.

Jason wants this. He wants this _ bad_.

His skin is slick with sweat, his mouth is bruised by kisses, and Bruce is still teasing him as he rubs the head of his cock along his taint until it’s slippery with his precum.

"Is it too much to want to be inside you, Jay?" Bruce is bent over him, his voice coming out on a growl while his mouth is tasting the salt from his skin, swapping a kiss at Jason's mouth for one placed at the junction of where Jason's neck stretches out into the slope of his shoulders.

Jason looks up at him with his eyes blown wide with lust.

"I'm just mad you aren't already fucking me into the mattress." Jason tells him, pointedly, arching his back and rolling his hips back to grind against Bruce's cock.

"None of that," Bruce tells him, pulling back to replace the tease of his cock with his fingers instead. All wet with lube still cool across the digits, he is patient even as he works his fingers inside of him, spreading them as he does, dragging the rough pads of his fingertips along the walls getting slicker by each torturous minute. "I'm going to take you apart, Jason. Nice and slow."

It's not just a declaration, it's a promise of the sincerest kind. He punctuates that promise with the rub of his fingers at Jason's prostate, leaving him gasping at the shock of pleasure that courses through him.

His thighs are shaking with effort, trying to stay still as he keeps them spread when all he wants is to wrap them around Bruce's waist just to drag him in.

"So that's what this is?" Jason asks, flush rising like a slow simmering flame across his cheeks, his freckles in stark contrast with the colour. "You want me to beg?"

Bruce's chuckle is a quiet thing, buried against the heat of Jason's skin, it feels like something special. Especially as he rakes the edge of his teeth down Jason's sternum, watching the skin go white then pink then red.

Bruce looks at him, eyes catching his, and he doesn't look away even when he can. "I don't want you begging at all, Jason." His fingers pushing that much deeper and spreading that much wider to get him accommodating to the full size of his cock when he finally fucks into him. "I just want to make you feel good."

This isn't what breaks him.

Jason has been through far too much for the word break to even begin to apply to him. But this comes daringly close.

He pushes inside with Jason on his back, one hand cupping his cheek while the other wraps around a hip, Bruce’s fingers making placeholders out of the sharp curve of his pelvic bone. As much as Jason wishes it would, none of it is hard enough to bruise. Instead, it feels Bruce is holding on to him like he could be something precious. Like this could be something magnificent.

“M-more,” Jason tells him on a drawn out sigh, all long and soft as he reaches out to wind his arms around Bruce’s neck to tug him back in for a messy kiss, one that he misses on the first attempt, his mouth barely sliding across the corner of Bruce’s.

“Anything.” Bruce answers, pushing back in on that same tempered pace, forcing Jason to feel the accommodating fit of his cock all along his walls as he fills him right back up again before the man is realigning their mouths together for a proper kiss.

He has the full weight of Bruce over him, every thrust steady, and it has Jason facing the truth that he feels safe.

It is not a feeling he thought he would be capable of experiencing in Bruce’s presence.

Bruce's arms around his waist, tugging him closer as he sits up, drawing Jason into his lap and fucking just that much deeper inside of him when he does. The angle changes, and Jason's knees nearly go out beneath him as he is drawn upright.

His breath hitches and the battered little whimper that comes out of him sounds downright wrecked.

When Bruce starts moving again, Jason moves too with the smallest little rocks of his hips that gets him feeling too good too fast and all he knows are these singular points of contact: the weight of Bruce's arm around him, the push of Bruce's tongue against his own and the soft sloppy noises as they swap spit, the insistent rub of Bruce's thumb against the edge of his nipple, keeping him hard and sensitive with that constant friction, and finally, the sensation of Bruce filling him all the way up to the brim on every thrust.

Jason is panting openly now, wanting a release that feels just within grasp. He is so close but he wants Bruce to be right there with him too. It's stupid and disgustingly embarrassing but he wants it. He wants it bad enough that he asks at all.

"Please, Bruce." He bites down on his bottom lip, feels that faint edge of swollen pain from being kissed so thoroughly, eyes squeezed shut and breathing audibly as his chest heaves on each shuddering breath. "With you," he tells him, one hand scratching the blunt edges of his nails down Bruce's chest, "I want to come with you."

Short of outright begging, Jason isn't so sure how else to convey it, leaning forward with the press of his nose to the crook of Bruce's jaw on a nudge, he grinds himself down on Bruce, feels a pleasure that renders all the strength from his body to go away when he has the full size of Bruce's cock dragging across his prostate. Fingers carding through the sweat soaked locks of his hair as he holds him close.

His body going taut and tense, with Bruce feeling all of that when he barely bites back a groan to mutter _ fuck _ wetly at the skin between Jason's collarbones.

They come together, with Bruce's hand wrapped around his cock, letting him fuck his fist as he fucks into him at the same pace. Bruce's mouth pressing insistently against his the entire time, one long perpetual kiss as he spills. His semen streaking white across Bruce's hands while Bruce himself comes spilling deep inside of Jason, hot and wet and pulsing as he fills him just as he wants.

He blinks moisture from his lashes, white stars from his vision, and opens his eyes up to have Bruce peering right back at him with a heavy heated half-lidded gaze, drinking him in, slow as he leans forward to press the barest pressure of a kiss to Jason's brows.

"You're good?" Bruce asks, his voice all low and coming out on a rumbling rasp that brings goosebumps across Jason's skin and a twitch to his spent cock.

Jason nods his head, the flush not going away from his skin even when all is said and done.

"It was," he mutters, ducking his head down so he doesn't have to see the way the lines around Bruce's eyes go wane when he smiles only to see the mess of his own release splattered all across his belly, "it's good if that's what you're asking."

The Jason Todd of this world is a catalyst.

The Jason Todd not of this world comes face to face with the aftermath of peace earned in systematic execution, in death dealt out without discrimination. If it is truly about justice, well. The logical conclusion is drawn, and all of it weighs heavily on a moral compass skewed by the happenstance of a young Robin beaten to death.

Jason leans against the doorway of Bruce’s bedroom. “This world owes everything to my death.”

“Peace comes at an insurmountable cost.”

It rips a laugh from Jason because: “Who the fuck even says stuff like that.”

Bruce stays silent but there is a soft smile playing at his lips because they both know the answer to a question like that even when it goes unanswered.

“Could you say it was worth it?” Jason asks after a slow beat, bare feet scuffing at the start of carpet by the threshold.

“If it was, I wouldn’t have forced you to stay.”

This too is one, another slow thundering beat that brings them into a crescendo. It is always these slow quiet moments, that come unexpectedly to knock him right off-kilter. Jason feels a chill, crawling along his skin, snaking up the line of his spine to wind around his throat. He asks even when he doesn't want to know.

"...What is that supposed to mean, Bruce?"

It's a vice grip that closes over the hollow of his throat as Bruce comes clean. "It means I sealed and fortified the doors to this bunker long before I let you out of that chair.”

"You asked."

"And you said yes."

"When I thought I had a choice."

Maybe, it is the principle of things around here.

Maybe, it is the strict lack of that when they are two men left to their own devices, talking excuses into morality and then back again with how wide their circles go.

It is like as though they are the only two people left on this earth. And it might even be true. It is a stunning thing to recognize. Jason takes a ragged breath in and then another one out. He blinks and one second he is still standing and the next he is on the ground with his knees pulled to his chest, sitting just within the threshold of Bruce's bedroom while his eyes stare but do not see a thing. He swallows hard, and his throat feels dry.

“...How do you know when it’s safe out there?” He croaks out, but he is almost certain he doesn't want to know the answer to this either.

“I don’t.” Bruce answers from his place, out of bed, and crouched in front of Jason. He is just within arm's reach but neither one of them allows for that. “Not with any kind of certainty that I would be willing to risk you.”

"It's funny." Jason says but he is not laughing, he isn't sure he will ever laugh again if that yawning hollow drop of settling realization is any indication at all. "I would've done anything you wanted. I would've stayed just like you want. I _wanted_ to stay if given the choice but I didn't get that either."

"I couldn't risk losing you."

Bruce leans forward, drawing him into his arms. There is something so unsettling to the comfort Jason feels down to the marrow of his bones from this despite everything he now knows.

Once a Robin, always a Robin.

It's enduring how that remains true even through a second life and universes away.

Jason sinks into Bruce's embrace, lets him gather him so close to his chest like he is something precious. He rests his cheek down against Bruce's shoulder, doesn't resist when the man drops a faint press of his lips over the crown of his head. It's warm, but there is no reassurance to it.

"Well," Jason whispers, and it comes out on a rasp, "it seems like some things never change no matter where I am. Turns out, you're just like him."

His face burrows into the crook of Bruce's neck, inhaling on a scent he knows from heart, Jason tells the truth that they both know as a fact of life after death.

"You were always going to lose me anyway."


End file.
